Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Mother Georgia, who welcomes you with the fun (a ball of wine in her left hand) or the fury (the sword in her right)

I know in my last post (in which I let some fury fly) I had promised to spend some of my layover time in the Prague airport on some long-awaited posts on areas outside of Georgia, but much like my Mingrelian friends, I was of course only conning you.

Actually what happened was I got into a conversation with some Georgian law students who were heading to Lithuania for a moot-court competition. They were all from Tbilisi, so they had an even higher sense of Georgian-superiority than most, but a few of them knew English quite well and we had a nice little talk, which of course included the mandatory question all Georgians ask foreigners, Do you like Georgian food?

All in all, it was a pretty pleasant talk. The only part that bothered me was one of the students, who when I tried to express my enthusiasm for his trip to Vilnius, the historical capitol of Lithuania, by saying, Lithuania? Cool, man!, he replied by saying very dryly with a small tint of arrogance, Lithuania is not cool... Georgia is cool. This is exactly the type of narrow mind frame that had me jones'n for a vacation.

I know not all Georgians think this way, but there are a ton that do... without ever having been anywhere else! That's so ridiculous and irrational. I don't mind thinking Georgia is amazing, because I share the same notion. It's unique, beautiful, and the people are incredibly hospitable. But saying it's better than another place without ever having been there is outrageously short-sighted.

Anyways, I wasn't really in the mood to type anything up, and considering I was on vacation in Krakow, I didn't really feel like doing anything productive there, either. All of which means that I now have three different places to catch up on (Vietnam, Armenia, and Poland). So please be patient, although apparently there are singing/dancing/sporting competitions the next few days in my district meaning meaning there is no class while I'll have plenty of time to take a bite out of that list.

As for Georgia, the week long vacation may have been just what I needed to come back with a fresh set of eyes. Krakow was amazing, but just within the few days I've been more appreciative and less bitchy (at least in an observational sense). And that's despite a drunken soldier spilling a liter of beer all over me on the night train back from Tbilisi on Monday night (although to be fair, he did offer me some of it beforehand).